The Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR) and the Lupus Research Institute (LRI) are excited to report rapid progress on the cooperative project we launched just months ago to fast-track scientific analysis and identification of potential new treatments for lupus. The lupus community participates with comments, ideas and input on the program’s dedicated LinkedIn site, LRxL STAT.

The proactive initiative focuses on identifying new treatments from among those that are approved for other conditions. We are encouraged that progress has been even more rapid and comprehensive than anticipated with 155 potential therapies analyzed and identified from an initial analysis of 6,800 therapies approved for human use. A prestigious expert committee will soon review these results and prioritize the best candidates for clinical trials in lupus.

Developer of scientific content, Amrie Grammer, PhD comments, “We are very grateful to the entire lupus community for helping us to identify candidate drugs and treatments for repositioning into lupus based on mechanism of action, safety profile and feasibility for testing. After the list is prioritized, the goal is to conduct small, science-rich, proof-of-concept trials as the shortest path to new treatments.”

LRI CEO Peggy Dowd notes, “The number of drugs with potential for use in lupus is extremely encouraging, and we look forward to identifying the drugs and treatments which hold the greatest promise to improve patient care. This partnership has moved the lupus field forward in a way we have never seen before.”

“We are very excited at the rapid progress of the joint initiative of ALR and LRI,” says ALR President Kenneth M. Farber. “It is very promising that there are so many drugs and therapies that are intriguing candidates to be repositioned for lupus. We look forward to the opportunity to test as many of these candidates as we can. Developing safer, more effective therapies for lupus patients is our highest priority.”

Moving on Several FrontsIn addition to this project, the ALR and LRI are also funding members of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) launched earlier this month by the National Institutes of Health to understand the molecular pathways underlying lupus. It is hoped that AMP will identify additional pathways that can be targeted with novel therapies for lupus.

Commitment to Developing New TherapiesBoth the LRI and the ALR are committed together and individually to supporting initiatives that can bring lupus patients the safer and more effective treatments they need and deserve, both immediately (LRxL STAT) and in the longer term (AMP).